new bloom
by mako-lies
Summary: Kevin's growing up the hard way. [post season 7]


_Summer_

The problem with the tablet is that it doesn't come with diagrams. Kevin squints at the rock till he's pretty sure he'd speak in tongues if he had anybody to talk to. Lights flash bright across his vision, forking like lightning, and the pain comes as the rolling thunder after. He lifts the spray paint can, fingers trembling. So—he starts with a circle?

Shit, he'd been a visual learner before this—reading instructions he only half-understands is not exactly helpful to creating whatever a Devil's Trap actually is.

Sunlight cuts through the broken window, and he takes a steadying breath as he paints a circle around it. Feels a trouble-kid, like the ones that would paint obscenities on the churches back home. Feels like one of those kids his mom would say, "can't wait for their court date," under her breath about. His stomach clutches as he envisions his mom here—glad she isn't, but the warmth of her arms, the easy "Kevin, we'll be okay"—he shakes his head as he tries to remember what comes next.

Kevin swallows around the mother-sized lump in his throat. No—no. He has to keep going. No stopping.

* * *

_Fall_

The computer offers a different type of headache. Stabbing sharp like glass shards digging into his eyes. His stomach is aching and hollow, like it might finally quit and make him throw up everything he hasn't eaten. Kevin scrunches his eyes shut, and takes a shuddering breath in this library where fucking adults can't control their screaming kids.

He types in another few lines—he has to be better at this than pickpocketing. Has to be, or one he'll starve, and two, Crowley will use his mistakes to track him. The memory of cologne is heavy in his nose, that horrible lilting voice—Kev. He checks the door on habit, then turns his fractured gaze back to the screen. Kevin needs money.

Kevin reaches up to rub at his eyes, winces at the sharp throb of the bruise. He pulls his fingers away from the black eye—shit, he is an awful pickpocket. But fake credit cards? Maybe this is better. This he can do.

No other choice, really, if he wants to eat. And if he wants enough paint to make new Devil's Traps. His head aches again as he turns his gaze to the window. Winter is coming.

* * *

_Winter_

Whiskey isn't as warm as Kevin assumed it would be. Sure, it burns on the way down-makes him sputter and choke and the other vagrants laugh-but it doesn't banish the chill, the constant tremor since the midwestwinter started.

Doesn't make Kevin feel full, either. But the more he drinks, the more he forgets the gnawing in his stomach that is something between anxiety and hunger.

(It's stupid to let these people get him drunk. Could be informants for Crowley. Could be possessed. Could be creeps. But the world blurs around the edges and for the first time in months, Kevin smiles. Smiles so much his face hurts, and they are clapping him on the back, and he flinches from the first few touches, but then-then it feels good, the warmth. So he lets them, and drinks another and another and another.)

Kevin staggers back to his church, avoiding the worst of the ice only because of years in Michigan. He is a fucking expert ice-walker. That could be his superpower, if it weren't being Hell's biggest target and studying squiggles. Flopped onto the floor in the center of a Devil's Trap, Kevin still can't sleep.

* * *

_Spring_

He catches the plague as the birds start waking him in the morning. Okay, maybe not the plague, but everything hurts and he's cold all the time and what little appetite he still has evaporates like his funds always seem to. Sleep drags him spiraling down down, leaving him defenseless, and he dreams of Crowley-regardless of whether he's awake or asleep.

Kevin wakes to Crowley leering over the nest of blankets. All the air seizes in Kevin's chest and he runs and runs, scrambling out the door like the mad dog he's becoming, and the sunrise is orange and pink and beats down on his face sinisterly, and he can't-can't breathe as sweat plasters his hair to his face.

Where is he-?

"Hey, you okay?" A kid, girl, can't be more than thirteen examines him with furrowed brows.

God, she's going to call the cops, isn't she? But instead, she offers a tentative smile, and then she fishes in her spiderman backpack for-she hands him a small red soup canister. "You like you need this," she tells him, "Besides, dad knows I hate chicken noodle."

Kevin shouldn't-he shouldn't, shouldn't, but his eyes well with tears. "Thank you."


End file.
